The Destroying Angel Part 16

"Right," Whitaker agreed steadily. "And then--?"

"I traced her to the Hotel Belmont, where she stopped overnight, then lost her completely; and so reported to Mrs. Pett.i.t. I must mention here, in confidence, in order that you may understand my subsequent action, that my bill for the investigation was never paid. Mr. Pett.i.t was not in very comfortable circ.u.mstances at the time.... No matter. I didn't press him, and later was glad of it, for it left me a free agent--under no obligation to make further report."

"I don't understand you."

"In a moment.... I came into a little money about that time, and gave up my business: gave it up, that is, as far as placing myself at the service of the public was concerned. I retained my devouring curiosity about things that didn't concern me personally, although they were often matters of extreme interest to the general public. In other words, I continued to employ my time professionally, but only for my private amus.e.m.e.nt or in the interests of my friends.... After some time Mr.

Drummond sought me out and begged me to renew my search for Mrs.

Whitaker; you were dead, he told me; she was due to come into your estate--a comfortable living for an independent woman."

"And you found her and told Drummond--?"

Whitaker leaned over the table, studying the man's face with intense interest.

"No--and yes. I found Mrs. Whitaker. I didn't report to Drummond."

"But why--in Heaven's name?"

Ember smiled sombrely at the drooping ash of his cigar. "There were several reasons. In the first place I didn't have to: I had asked no retainer from Drummond, and I rendered no bill: what I had found out was mine, to keep or to sell, as I chose. I chose not to sell because--well, because Mrs. Whitaker begged me not to."

"Ah!" Whitaker breathed, sitting back. "Why?"

"This was all of a year, I think, after your marriage. Mrs. Whitaker had tasted the sweets of independence and--got the habit. She had adopted a profession looked upon with abhorrence by her family; she was succeeding in it; I may say her work was foreshadowing that extraordinary power which made her the Sara Law whom you saw to-night. If she came forward as the widow of Hugh Whitaker, it meant renunciation of the stage; it meant painful scenes with her family if she refused to abandon her profession; it meant the loss of liberty, of freedom of action and development, which was hers in her decent obscurity. She was already successful in a small way, had little need of the money she would get as claimant of your estate. She enlisted my sympathy, and--I held my tongue."

"That was decent of you."

The man bowed a quiet acknowledgment. "I thought you'd think so....

There was a third reason."

He paused, until Whitaker encouraged him with a "Yes--?"

"Mr. Whitaker"--the query came point-blank--"do you love your wife?"

Whitaker caught his breath. "What right--!" he began, and checked abruptly. The blood darkened his lean cheeks.

"Mrs. Whitaker gave me to understand that you didn't. It wasn't hard to perceive, everything considered, that your motive was pure chivalry--Quixotism. I should like to go to my grave with anything half as honourable and unselfish to my credit."

"I beg your pardon," Whitaker muttered thickly.

"You don't, then?"

"Love her? No."

There was a slight pause. Then, "I do," said this extraordinary man, meeting Whitaker's gaze openly. "I do," he repeated, flushing in his turn, "but ... hopelessly.... However, that was the third reason," he pursued in a more level voice--"I thought you ought to know about it--that induced me to keep Sara Law's secret.... I loved her from the day I found her. She has never looked twice at me.... But that's why I never lost interest."

"You mean," Whitaker took him up diffidently--"you continued to--ah--?"

"Court her--as we say? No." Ember's shoulders, lifting, emphasized the disclaimer. "I'm no fool: I mean I'm able to recognize a hopeless case when it's as intimate to me as mine was--and is. Doubtless Mrs. Whitaker understands--if she hasn't forgotten me by this time--but, if so, wholly through intuition. I have had the sense not to invite the thunderbolt.

I've sat quietly in the background, watching her work out her destiny--feeling a good deal like a G.o.d in the machine. She doesn't know it, unless Max told her against my wish; but it was I who induced him to take her from the ranks of a provincial stock company and bring her before the public, four years ago, as _Joan Thursday_. Since then her destiny has been rather too big a thing for me to tamper with; but I've watched and wondered, sensing forces at work about her of which even she was unsuspicious."

"What in blazes do you mean?" Whitaker demanded, mystified.

"Did it strike you to wonder at the extraordinary mob her farewell performance attracted to-night--the rabble that packed the street, though quite hopeless of even seeing the inside of the theatre?"

"Why--yes. It struck me as rather unusual. But then, Max had done nothing but tell me of her tremendous popularity."

"That alone, great as it is, wouldn't have brought so many people together to stare at the outside of a theatre. The magnet was something stronger--the morbid curiosity of New York. Those people were waiting, thrilled with expectancy, on tiptoe for--what do you think?"

"I shall think you mad in another moment, if you don't explain yourself," Whitaker told him candidly.

Ember's smile flashed and vanished. "They were waiting for the sensation that presently came to them: the report of Drummond's death."

"What the devil--!"

"Patience!... It had been discounted: if something of the sort hadn't happened, New York would have gone to bed disappointed. The reason? This is the third time it has happened--the same thing, practically: Sara Law on the verge of leaving the stage to marry, a fatal accident intervening. Did Max by any chance mention the nickname New York has bestowed on Sara Law?"

"Nickname? No!"

"They call her 'The Destroying Angel.'"

"What d.a.m.nable rot!"

"Yes; but what d.a.m.nable coincidence. Three men loved her--and one by one they died. And now the fourth. Do you wonder...?"

"Oh, but--'The Destroying Angel'--!" Whitaker cried indignantly. "How can they blame her?"

"It isn't blame--it's superst.i.tion. Listen...."

Ember bent forward, holding Whitaker's gaze with intent, grave eyes.

"The first time," he said in a rapid undertone, "was a year or so after her triumph as _Joan Thursday_. There were then two men openly infatuated with her, a boy named Custer, and a man I believe you knew--William Hamilton."

"I knew them both."

"Custer was making the pace; the announcement of his engagement to Sara Law was confidently antic.i.p.ated. He died suddenly; the coroner's jury decided that he had misjudged the intentions of a loaded revolver.

People whispered of suicide, but it didn't look quite like that to me.

However ... Hamilton stepped into his place. Presently we heard that Sara Law was to marry him and leave the stage. Hamilton had to go abroad on business; on the return trip--the wedding was set for the day after he landed here--he disappeared, no one knew how. Presumably he fell overboard by accident one night; sane men with everything in the world to live for do such things, you know--according to the newspapers."

"I understand you. Please go on."

"Approximately eighteen months later a man named Thurston--Mitch.e.l.l Thurston--was considered a dangerous aspirant for the hand of Sara Law.

He was exceedingly well fixed in a money way--a sort of dilettantish architect, with offices in the Metropolitan Tower. One day at high noon he left his desk to go to lunch at Martin's; crossing Madison Square, he suddenly fell dead, with a bullet in his brain. It was a rifle bullet, but though the square was crowded, no one had heard the report of the shot, and no one was seen carrying a rifle. The conclusion was that he had been shot down by somebody using a gun with a Maxim silencer, from a window on the south side of the square. There were no clues."

"And now Drummond!" Whitaker exclaimed in horror. "Poor fellow! Poor woman!"

A slightly sardonic expression modified the lines of Ember's mouth. "So far as Mrs. Whitaker is concerned," he said with the somewhat pedantic mode of speech which Whitaker was to learn to a.s.sociate with his moments of most serious concentration--"I echo the sentiment. But let us suspend judgment on Drummond's case until we know more. It is not as yet an established fact that he is dead."

"You mean there's hope--?"

"There's doubt," Ember corrected acidly--"doubt, at least, in my mind.